ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

That Chael Sonnen guy: He isn’t one of the best light heavyweights in UFC. But Sonnen has the gift of gab. He’s second to none in that category. His uncanny ability to come up with catchy phrases, primarily derogatory comments targeted at champions, captures the attention of the most casual fight fan.

Like it or not, when Sonnen speaks, everyone listens. And it has earned him some very lucrative paydays the past few years. It was during the months leading to his showdowns with middleweight titleholder Anderson Silva that Sonnen added a new wrinkle to his chatter. He took prefight trash talk to new heights, or depths, depending on your perspective. Sonnen questioned Silva’s intelligence, hinted at touching his wife in an inappropriate manner and said unflattering things about the champ’s native country of Brazil.

His statements could be classified as deplorable, but they served two purposes -- increasing interest in the fights and getting into Silva’s head. Sonnen is very skilled at getting in an opponent’s head before fight night.

He has employed this tactic again for his light heavyweight title bout Saturday night (pay-per-view) in Newark, N.J., against champion Jon Jones. But Sonnen has slightly altered his strategy.

There’s still a hint of nastiness -- he raised an issue about Jones’ mental capacity. That approach, however, has grown old and Jones is clearly too intelligent to be fazed by it.

So during a recent media call to promote the fight, Sonnen unveiled Plan B: soften Jones up with kindness. Rather than attempt to get under Jones’ skin with derogatory statements, Sonnen turned to praise as a way to distract the champion.

“I always find it, you know, as great as Jon is, I don’t think that he understands how good he is,” Sonnen said. “You know for him to pay tribute to Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali earlier was a very nice thing for him to do. The reality is Jon Jones could beat up Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali in the same day.

“And when he says he wants to be the best ever, Jon, news flash, buddy, you are the best.”

Talk about taking prefight mind games to extremes.

Is Jones the best mixed martial artist today? Yes, though Silva supporters would surely chime in on this discussion.

The comparison to Tyson is fine. But Sonnen went too far by mentioning Jones and Ali in the same sentence. That’s total madness.

Ali was far more than a great boxer, he transcended his sport. Like Sonnen, he talked a lot of trash before fights -- often belittling his opponent -- which served to increase interest in the bout. More often than not, Ali backed up his prefight boasting. But what separated, and continues to separate, Ali from most other great athletes was his unwavering willingness to confront the social injustices of his day.

Ali’s positions weren’t always met with full approval from the masses, but the man was admired, especially in the African-American community, for staying true to his convictions in the face of overwhelming verbal attacks.

Jones has a long way to go and many more hurdles to overcome in his professional fighting career before comparisons to Ali can be taken seriously. Until then it is unfair, even insulting, to Jones to make such a comparison.

Fortunately, Jones refused to be sucked in to Sonnen’s trap. He remains focused on the issue at hand -- retaining his title Saturday night at UFC 159.

“I can’t afford to worry or feel any type of feelings of him being kind or anything,” Jones said. “The thought of someone taking my name away from me and that nickname is Champ, I take that very personal. I take that with a grain of salt.

“And that’s the way I need to keep my attitude. I need to keep my focus. Someone’s trying to take away my dream, you know, the thought of going home without my belt, it keeps me angry. So I don’t care if someone says something nice about me.”

Jones will defeat Sonnen at UFC 159, within three rounds, continuing his journey toward MMA immortality. And maybe one day a young champion will be compared to him, prematurely. That too, of course, will be unfair.

Never has Muhammed Lawal doubted his ability to compete at the highest levels and become MMA’s best 205-pound fighter -- and he is not about to do so now.

That unexpected first-round knockout loss to Emanuel Newton in February hasn’t diminished his resolve. If anything, the loss strengthened it.

Nothing else about Lawal has changed since that February setback: His camp remains fully intact. Jeff Mayweather -- yes, that Mayweather, the uncle of boxing champion Floyd Jr. -– still calls the shots in Lawal’s corner. And UFC heavyweight Roy "Big Country" Nelson continues to be one of his primary sparring partners.

When he returns to action, which is likely to be June 19 at a Bellator event in Oklahoma against an opponent to be named, Lawal will enter the arena with his familiar swagger. He will have a cape drenched over his shoulders, sunglasses covering his eyes and a crown on his head.

"King Mo" still lives! And he will be as bad and brash as ever. He has no intention of suddenly playing nice. If you didn’t like his act before, wait until you see him in June.

“I’m not going to change up things,” Lawal told ESPN.com. “Some people, after a loss, change their entire camp up. Jeff is on point. Roy Nelson is a great training partner. I’ve got good sparring in Las Vegas.

“I’m not going to be like Mike Tyson. He was a great fighter, but I feel that after he lost to Buster Douglas, he kind of fell apart. He was never the same again. He lost his aura.

“With me, I’m going to keep the same aura going. I’m just going to take it out on my next opponent.”

When he steps in the cage, Lawal, as usual, will be the superior athlete -- regardless who the opponent happens to be. He will remain comfortable dropping his hands, because his high-level footwork allows him to control distance. That footwork is pure Mayweather, and a major component of Lawal’s stand-up success.

Lawal will move his head and change levels repeatedly while delivering those stinging jabs and occasional kicks. They serve to set up either vicious takedowns or knockout-caliber punches. And through it all, Lawal will taunt his opponent with a mean-spirited smile on his face.

It will be the same fighting display Lawal put on against Newton before getting hit with what he calls that "fluke" punch. Actually, it was a spinning back fist that found Lawal's chin at the 2:35 mark.

The punch surprised Lawal, dropping him face-first to the canvas and likely costing him a shot this year at the Bellator light heavyweight title.

Newton went on to claim the Bellator Season 8 light heavyweight tournament and will face promotion titleholder Attila Vegh. A date for that fight has yet to be determined.

Back to Lawal. It’s unlikely he will get caught with the same punch two fights in a row.

He intends to win his next fight and every one after that in the foreseeable future, and he is rooting for Newton to do the same. Lawal believes their paths will cross much sooner if each man keeps winning.

Lawal is itching to get his hands on Newton as soon as possible. He wants to destroy Newton in the cage before humiliating him. It’s part of Lawal’s payback plan.

“Hopefully Emanuel will win the whole [Bellator] tournament so I can beat his ass and get that belt from him,” Lawal said. “And after I beat him, I’m going to do a dance all in his face. I’m going to be so unsportsmanlike; it’s going to be unbelievable.

“This dude is trying to act like he knew what he threw [the spinning back fist], saying ‘I wanted to throw over my shoulder.’ Man, you didn’t want to throw from your shoulder. We’ve seen the replay.

“The thing is I’m going to throw it in his face. I’m going to be the heel. I’m going to be the bad guy. I like being the bad guy.”

Lawal is so confident of landing a rematch with Newton and destroying him that he continues to prepare for his professional wrestling debut. He still doesn’t know when that will happen but emphasizes that MMA remains his top priority.

“I do the pro wrestling stuff for like an hour, two or three times a week,” Lawal said. “That’s it, then I go back to boxing, jujitsu, wrestling and MMA sparring.”

Pro wrestling is intriguing, but Lawal won’t allow it to get in the way of his immediate goal: landing a rematch with Newton and humiliating him.

Dana White likened Anderson Silva to Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan following his latest win at UFC 153, and predicted that the Brazilian's own desire to astonish people will lead him into a super-fight with Jon Jones. More »

Conventional wisdom suggests that Stephan Bonnar, who last fought in November 2011 and spent the past few months contemplating retirement, has nothing to lose against middleweight champion Anderson Silva at UFC 153.

There’s no title on the line, the bout will be contested at light heavyweight and Silva’s physical skills so far exceed what Bonnar has to offer that oddsmakers have the Brazilian opening as a 13-1 favorite.

Bonnar will enter the Oct. 13 bout in Rio de Janeiro on a three-fight win streak. Those victories, however, have come against middle-of-the-pack competitors Kryzstof Soszynski, Igor Pokrajac and Kyle Kingsbury.

Silva on the other hand has won 16 straight and doesn’t know the taste of losing inside the Octagon. Fighters on his destruction list include Chael Sonnen, Forrest Griffin, Rich Franklin, Dan Henderson, Nate Marquardt and Vitor Belfort.

By all measures this main-event fight is being viewed as nothing more than an exhibition. For Bonnar, however, it’s anything but.

This is as real a fight as any Bonnar has ever participated in, and regardless of conventional wisdom he is going in to it determined to give everything his 35-year-old body can muster.

Bonnar is a prideful man. He has given much of his body to the professional fight game for nearly 11 years.

He definitely has something to lose. If this is his final fight, Bonnar doesn’t want to be embarrassed. But more important, he has a lot gain with an impressive performance or better yet -- the unthinkable -- a victory.

“I’m going to do my best,” Bonnar told ESPN.com. “It’s so hard to top the Forrest fight after all those years. It’s a great storybook in and of itself, but what’s my storybook ending?

“I beat Anderson Silva and it’s like the perfect ending. What’s going to top that? Nothing! But after I beat Anderson Silva, if I want to fight again I’ll be given a fight that I can make a lot of money off of. Do I end my career on a storybook ending or keep fighting and get rich? That’s a great problem to have.”

Bonnar and Griffin fought in the Season 1 finale of "The Ultimate Fighter." That bout, which was held in April 2005, has been credited with catapulting UFC into the mainstream.

Griffin won that fight, and their August 2009 rematch, by unanimous decision. Despite suffering the two losses, Bonnar campaigned hard the past year trying to land a third fight with Griffin. His repeated attempts to convince UFC president Dana White to name him and Griffin as "TUF" coaches were unsuccessful.

But an upset of Silva, which would rank among the biggest upsets -- along with boxing’s Mike Tyson-James "Buster" Douglas and Sonny Liston-Cassius Clay -- in combat sports history, would open numerous opportunities to Bonnar.

“I’m going in there [against Silva] to win or die trying,” Bonnar said. “That’s the plan.

“

If I beat Anderson [Silva] I won't have too much of a problem getting that coaching gig with a fighter like Forrest [Griffin]. I just heard that in the history of UFC I'm the biggest underdog they've ever had. And I'm fighting in his backyard. Talk about no pressure, it doesn't get any better.

” -- Stephan Bonnar, on what little he has to lose at UFC 153

“If I beat Anderson I won’t have too much of a problem getting that coaching gig with a fighter like Forrest. I just heard that in the history of UFC I’m the biggest underdog they’ve ever had. And I’m fighting in his backyard. Talk about no pressure, it doesn’t get any better.”

There is some pressure, however. Not the kind that comes from fan expectations, there is little of that. The only issue as far as an overwhelming majority of fans are concerned is how many rounds will Bonnar last against Silva?

This fight represents Bonnar’s final chance to cash in on a mixed martial arts career that began in November 2001. It’s now or never. That’s pressure. Bonnar won’t get another chance to hit the jackpot if he doesn’t, at the very least, deliver a respectable performance.

He has years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears riding on this fight against arguably the best mixed martial artist ever -- and it is proving to be a bit nerve-racking.

“Fear is a great motivator and so is money,” Bonnar said. “I’ve got this T-shirt business and all that. It’s doing all right, but I’d really love to blow that up and make it successful.

“And winning this fight would be the easiest way to do that.”

Mike Tyson has revealed he would have chosen MMA over boxing if there had been enough money in the sport when he first started out. More »

Chael Sonnen has continued his baiting of UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, insisting he is only staying unbeaten because he picks his opposition. More »